Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spent the whole of his political life a member of the Socialist Left faction of the ALP.
As a result, we get the government we can all see—a big spending, highly centralised, regulating government that sees ordinary people as the problem and government as the solution.
But the thing you might have noticed about the friendly folk of the Socialist Left is that those who disagree with them (who are more conservative) are often labelled ‘fascist.’
The problem I see with this is that most people who throw around the word ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse, have no idea what it actually means.
Here is how the great American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, explains the fascist/ fascism word group: ‘In simplest terms, fascism refers to a specific way of organizing a society: under fascism, a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people in that society, and allows no dissent or disagreement.’
The word originally referred to members of the Italian political organization founded by Benito Mussolini in 1919 and dedicated to violently nationalistic and totalitarian principles.
So, clearly, it’s an Italian word—but from a Latin source word, meaning ‘bundle.’
In ancient Rome magistrates carried a bundle of sticks, in the middle of which was an axe, as a symbol of their power and authority.
In modern Italian, the word was used to a mean a ‘bundle’ or ‘group’ or ‘band’ of people.
Mussolini took up this word to name his name his ‘fighting bands’ calling them ‘fascists.’
From 1919, they tried to seize power in Italy.
The contradiction here is that the political conservatives who are smeared with the label ‘fascist’ are the exact opposite of such controlling authoritarians.
By and large political conservatives are in favour of smaller government, less regulation, and less interference in private lives and greater personal freedoms.
Those who want to do those things (interfere in personal lives and freedoms) tend to be the very ones who call others ‘fascists.’
Do the words ‘pot,’ ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ seem to fit in here?
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If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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